My Signals: Autistic Reflections of a Man Who Thinks in Circles and Dreams Like a Stone

My Signals: Autistic Reflections

‘The geometric synaesthetic system of communication, which I call “my signals”, enables me to do what other “aspies” can’t: accurately interpret a social situation, decide what individuals are communicating, and work out how I will need to behave accordingly’, saysPatrick Jasper Lee, author of My Signals: Autistic Reflections of a Man Who Thinks in Circles and Dreams Like a Stone (Ravine Press 2013).

Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and dyspraxia, Patrick Jasper Lee lives with a rare form of synaesthesia in a universe where the psychological make-up and intentions in those he meets register in his mind as geometric shapes, patterns and elements of nature. This contradicts the part of his autism spectrum condition called ‘mind-blindness’ whereby individuals are unable to read specific emotions and nonverbal expressions in other people. My Signals describes in detail the synaesthetic system he uses to communicate, and explains how his world is one where people, animals, situations, machines and objects are in a constant process of becoming brittle squares, watery circles and floating triangles. Not only does his system help him to communicate more successfully, it also brings to light questions regarding how effectively society communicates in general. Socially, this idea can turn some standard beliefs upside down! For further details and excerpts, visit www.ravinepress.com/patrick-jasper-lee.

Patrick Jasper Lee is a published author, artist and speaker. His lives near Cardigan in West Wales with his wife Annabel, a business psychologist (www.primevalbusiness.com), and together they provide seminars and workshops challenging social issues which link this unique system of communication to aspects of life and mind.

Lee also heralds an indigenous Romani Gypsy lineage and inherited the role of Chovihano (medicine man) from his great-grandfather. His first book, We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Shamanic Tradition and Culture (Thorsons 2000; 2d ed. Ravine Press 2013), is a rare account of Romani life from this exclusive perspective; as probably the last of his kind in Western Europe, it is a significant work.

He is also a writer of fiction: Beyond a Near Water (Boktalo 2005) which follows the lives of a family of nomadic Gypsies across thousands of years, and Berenice of the Beeches (Ravine Press 2013), written in the first person about a young man with Asperger’s syndrome who struggles to manage everyday life, relationships and loneliness, all of which are compounded by his fixation with having to know everyone’s surname.

Patrick Jasper Lee is available for interviews and talks. For booking presentations, photographs and articles, contact info@patrickjasperlee.com.

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